Particular embodiments generally relate to medical records management systems.
Some single provider systems allow their patients to access information about their test results and medications ordered. A patient can then access his/her medical records via a web portal associated with the health care provider. However, the system is tethered to the single provider and does not allow the patient to save and download personal health information from the web portal. Basically, the information is accessible to the patient only for as long as the patient is affiliated with the health care organization.
Personal health records allow users to access and coordinate their lifelong health information. This allows a user to aggregate medical information from multiple providers, such as different physicians, health care facilities, insurers, and other entities. Previously, a user's health records were separately maintained by single providers, such as a single medical group. However, a robust personal health record system is able to allow a user's medical information to be consolidated from multiple providers and to be portable with the user even when the user terminates care from the health care provider.
As patient care becomes more complicated, users sometimes seek treatment from different health care providers. The personal health record system allows aggregation of health records but sometimes the aggregation of records may be confusing or hard to understand when they are aggregated from multiple health care providers. This makes it harder for a user to determine if the quality of care being administered by the multiple health care providers is adequate or not. Also, the single provider systems are specific to each different provider and thus the user is forced to use the single provider's preferred standard of care.